Monday, September 08, 2008 Valdehuesa: Erratic People Power By Manuel Valdehuesa Street Talk
IT WILL soon be September 21, the day Martial Law was declared in 1972. It took 14 years to get rid of the dictatorship, in 1986 -- 22 years ago already. But democracy remains weak. Its behavior evokes the early days of Cepalco when the power it generated was erratic, providing Cagayan with its minimum energy needs and not much more. There were no handy voltage regulators then, so our households were vulnerable to sudden power surges - causing appliances to malfunction, burn out or be rendered useless. A strong surge in those days would plunge the neighborhoods in darkness for indefinite periods.
Democracy is nothing but people power, the power generated by society to energize its appliances - its social, political and economic institutions. If the power is erratic or inconsistent, problems arise. Even an occasional surge of people power can be unsettling - socially, economically, politically. We see this when riotous demonstrations or civil unrest bring cities to a standstill. When Martial Law turned off people power completely, its absence brought on the gloom of uncertainty, loss of freedoms, and the darkness of authoritarian rule.
People power first surged in our republic during the early 1950s when Ramon Magsaysay shook the masses from their torpor and made them realize that they actually had the power to elect a president without prompting from anyone. Whereupon, they proceeded to elevate him to Malacaņang over and above the heads of the traditional leaders and power brokers.
Before Magsaysay, all a candidate had to do was get the nod of the ruling patriarchs and the votes would go his way. Romualdez in Leyte, Laurel in Batangas, Vinsons in Bicol, Osmeņa in Cebu, Pelaez in Misamis, Fortich in Bukidnon, Pendatun in Cotabato, and so on. They had command of the provincial votes, so there was no need for elaborate campaigns, no need to shake every hand in sight, in order to win votes.
Magsaysay changed all that by going straight to the grassroots, awakening their dormant sovereignty in the process. Unfortunately, he vanished too abruptly when his plane crashed in 1957. As a result, people power dimmed and the power surge abated as politics went back to business-as-usual and the citizens were reduced to spectators.
In 1970, people power surged again during its "First Quarter Storm." The seeds Magsaysay had sown sprouted in the youth of the 1960s and burst upon the political landscape with explosive force to protest the infamous reelection of Marcos. Fearful of the storm that lasted well beyond the Constitutional Convention of 1971, Marcos took matters in hand, declared Martial Law in September 1972, and shut off people power completely.
So effectively did he suppress it that he was able to keep our freedoms under lock and key for 14 years. But like the ineluctable pressure that mounts within a volcano, people power cannot be suppressed too long if provoked. The pressure for change simmered and came to a boil until, by February 1986, it could no longer be contained. As the world watched, it erupted at Edsa with a fury no one till then had seen. But, wonder of wonders, it did not spew violence or disaster. It was a smiling, prayerful fury that transfixed the world, swept Marcos away in a matter of days, and installed Cory Aquino's yellow forces in its wake.
Unfortunately, as in the early Cepalco years, our society was still ill equipped to harness the power surge. Its energy could not be sustained to animate a durable system of government or revive a sputtering economy. The political parties had been emasculated, the institutions corrupted, the civil society, in hibernation for more than a decade, had no strategy for rebuilding a post-authoritarian order. Back to the old ways went our politics yet again as people power dimmed, as politicians reverted to pre-Martial Law habits, and as citizens slid back to apathy.
As the 21st Century dawned, people power surged again on a societal scale, but that's for another column. Meanwhile, if you can't recall how Edsa I happened and why, check the memory of senior citizens like Al Maņus, Joe Belen, Joe Nebrao, or Cocoy Velez!
A former UN executive and peace negotiator under the Cory administration, Manny heads the Gising Barangay Movement and writes Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. Email: valdeman_esq@yahoo.com
